Maurice Denis and Les Amours de Marthe at the Musée d'Orsay

Maurice Denis and Les Amours de Marthe at the Musée d'Orsay
#Exhibitions

When, in 1897, the art merchant Ambroise Vollard asked Maurice Denis to publish an album of prints inspired by the Loves of Marthe - intimate notes made by the French painter in 1891 in his diary at the start of his relationship with his future wife Marthe Meurier. More than providing mere illustrations, Denis sought, above all, to translate in formal equivalents, the stupor and emotions of their first encounters. The artist of Granville depicts his young love, the central subject of the series, in intimate and familial scenes, sometimes allegorical, encapsulating all of his love for her. To weave this poem of images, Maurice Denis borrows from paintings created around 1890. The long creative process, ending at the start of 1899, yielded numerous preparatory drawings, pastels in particular, the faint colours of which can be found in several lithographs. Amour represents the synthesis and the culmination of the artist’s sculptural studies, starting with his debut at the Académie Julian and, in a certain sense, marks the end of the “Nabis Period” of the painter. Presented at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard in March-April of 1899, the album, comprised of twelve panels and a cover, printed in a limited edition of 100 by Auguste Clot, numbered and signed by hand by the artist, is at the centre of the exhibition Maurice Denis. Les Amours de Marthe. Enhancing the lithographs, are also two portraits of Marthe, one in oil, the other in pastel, created in 1891 and belonging to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay.

Samantha De Martin - © 2023 ARTE.it for Bulgari Hotel Paris